Triple Boot from Bios and remove OS chooser?
Oops sorry about that! :-)
Hi there.
I did have a look around but couldn't find anything that would answer my question.

I have 3 SATA HDDs setup as follows:
PM: 40gig with XP Pro SP2
PS: CD Drive
SM: 6 gig 98SE
SS: 4 gig Mandrake 7.2

I only just installed Mandrake to day.
Before I was just using the Bios to pick which OS to boot to, and it worked quite well.

I thought that if I set the bios to boot from the SS and installed Mandrake on it maybe I could go on booting this way, but no such luck. I should have known better, as I have had Mandrake installed some time ago.

98SE boots fine still (when booted from it's drive, but not so well from GRUB as it cant's see what's on the other HDDs), and so does XP when booted from GRUB with the PM HDD set to boot from. But Mandrake wont boot at all. :-(

I am wondering if anyone can point me to a site that will explain how to remove GRUB and help me fix my Mandrake instillation just to boot from it's own HDD.

These are the error messages I get when trying to boot to Mandrake:

Option 1 Linux

Booting 'Linux'
kernel (hdd2,0)/boot/vmlinuz Root=?dev/hdd1 vga=788
[linux-bzimage, setup=0xa15d0]
Error Selected Item cannot fit into memory.


Option 2 Linux nonfab

Booting 'Linux-nonfab'
kernal (hdd2,0)/boot/vmlinuz Root=?dev/hdd1
[linux-bzimage, setup=0xa15d0]
Error Selected Item cannot fit into memory.

Option 3 failsafe

Booting 'failsafe'
kernal (hdd2,0)/boot/vmlinuz Root=?dev/hdd1 failsafe
[linux-bzimage, setup=0xa15d0]
Error Selected Item cannot fit into memory.

The next 2 options are windows1 and windows2
XP and 98SE. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.
-Adrian

Don't know what exactly you mean with "triple boot from BIOS", since all the BIOS does is jump to the first sector and first track of the boot device, jumping to whatever code it finds there and executing that. If you want to remove the OS chooser you'll have to overwrite the boot record with something else that will just boot the operating system you want. This doesn't make sense, however, sine you'll loose access to the other operating systems. The best might be to just format the disk, removing all partitions and just installing the operating system you want.

You need to provide more detail as to what you want to do exactly.

I think the bootloader is a must, so that it calls the correct location for the / and kernel

Can you post you /boot/grub/menu.lst?

How did you install GRUB - did you select any other options during installation. Normally, GRUB will not have any problems booting Windows - simply install it to the Master Boot Record on the Primary Master drive, and it should be able to boot Windows or Linux. Changing your OS using the bios is overkill.

And yes, the boot loader is a must - the bios points to the Boot Loader, and the Boot Loader points to the Kernel. All operating systems have a boot loader.

--Ian

Hi again guys.
Sorry if I didn't make it very clear.

I have no partitions, only 3 HDDs, all with separate OSes on them as listed in my original post.

I can access the different OSes through the bios no worries,
because I can choose which HDD to boot from.

Yes I know this is over kill :-) But I tend to use one OS for long periods of time (like weeks). Quite often having to install and restart, so I don't really want to have to choose which OS to use every time I do as well.

I really just want a break from windows for a change, and if I can get my head around Linux I will stick with it.

But I have two problems.
1) I don't understand how to get Linux to start by it's self. Eg. how do I remove the OS chooser and get Linux to boot as though it's the only OS on the system when booted from it's HDD?

2)How can I fix XP to do the same? It's running on FAT32. So I can access the disk from 98SE. Can I simply reboot from the 98SE CD and then type in fdisk /mbr, which should replace the mbr with a default one? (I don't have the XP CD).

TIA
-Adrian

If you don't want to see the GRUB menu, simply set timeout to 0 in /boot/grub/menu.lst.

Having said that - During the Mandrake installation, it should have detected both Windows XP and Windows 98 without any difficulties, and you should be presented with these choices when you boot your computer. How is it easier to change the boot order of your drives in your BIOS ??

Can you actually boot Mandrake? How much RAM do you have? This looks very odd.
Can you boot either Windows from GRUB?
What version of Mandrake have you installed - it may be worth trying another distro, such as Ubuntu.

--Ian

Hi Ian
I don't think I can unless you know a command line way of accessing it. Because Linux won't boot and neither of my other OSes can read that drive. I can find my way around dos OK, but I simply have no idea of Linux command line semantics.

GRUB (or at least I think it's GRUB :-) ) installs as part of this particular instillation (Mandrake 7.2 with KDE). The only choice I had to make was from Typical (700mb), Complete (1100mb), or Expert. I chose Complete, since I was giving Linux it's own HDD. I did have to format the HDD first and I gave it 1 gig of swap file and 3 gigs of / .

There were four buttons down in the left hand corner of the instillation window that were just off the screen. I didn't click any of them as I didn't know what they did.

GRUB does load both windows installations OK, but 98SE can only see the other FAT32 HDD (with XP on it) but not read it (Disk not ready).

The boot loader for dos/9x/me is io.sys isn't it?

I don't think I can unless you know a command line way of accessing it. Because it won't boot and neither of my other OSes can read that drive. I can find my way around dos OK, but I simply have no idea of Linux command line semantics.

GRUB (or at least I think it's GRUB :-) ) installs as part of this particular instillation. The only choice I had to make was from Typical (700mb), Complete (1100mb), or Expert. I chose Complete, since I was giving Linux it's own HDD. I did have to format the HDD first and I gave it 1 gig of swap file and 3 gigs of / .

GRUB does load both windows installations OK, but 98SE can only see the other FAT32 HDD (with XP on it) but not read it (Disk not ready).

I don't mind having to recompile Linux as I have only just loaded it. I can't actually boot Mandrake and I have 384mb of ram, a asus a7n266-vm, athlon 2000+ cpu.

Thanks ay.
-Adrian

Mandrake 7.2 is ancient history. It was released in 2000. If you are using Mandrake 7.2, then the boot loader is called LILO.

You seem to have a resonable machine, so I suggest trying a newer distro. If you have used Mandrake before, then try Mandriva. Alternatively, Ubuntu is a good distro for newbies, the lastest version was released last week. It is also only a one CD download, and they even ship free CDs to you.

--Ian

---Adrian

Dead set I am hopless at this forum thing! :-)
I am so used to uesnet via my mailreader.

Just a sideline:

Win98 can read/write FAT partitions, so unless you did set WinXP up to be on a FAT partition, Win98 can not read it or write it.
WinXP can read/write FAT and NTFS partitions and will not have problems with your Win98 partition.
Linux can reliably read/write FAT partitions. Further it can read NTFS reliably; write is still under construction (to my knowledge). So you will be able to read all partitions on the other disks and write to FAT partitions.

By default, Windows can not read/write Linux partitions. However, there is software for windows that will this possible (depending on the chosen file system under Linux).

Yes I did set XP on a FAT32 partition.
I knew about the 32Mb limit in XP, so I formatted the 40gig drive with the Win98 fdisk/format programs first. Then installed XP on it. I was running out of room on the Win98 disk and wanted to be able to use the 40gig drive for storage.

I just don't know if the mbr's are the same for the two OSes. Do you?

http://www.ubuntu.com/ - Ubuntu
http://www.mandriva.com/en/community/ - Mandriva (formerly Mandrake)

Good thing i can't be arsed to work :P

LOL! I know the feeling!
Thanks for the linx Ethics. <g>

as a side note, what i think you really wanted to do was to pop in your windows install disk, and in the recovery console run the fixmbr command. This will remove grub from your first hard-drive
You can then install grub in the mbr of your linux hard-drive

But, the os-chooser you talk of (the boot-loader) is required for Linux. It sets the bootstrap, and selects which kernel you want to use.